It’s time for a new segment here on the Barndoor. Besides cycling and cleaning toliets one of my favorite things to do is buy crap from the Goodwill store, or any other thrift store I can find. In this new segment I’ll show you some of the amazing high quality crap I’ve bought.
This is the American Electrola DXC-100 AM/FM/SW radio.
Here is a little history on the American Electrola…

A group of people at a small electronic company in Pittsburgh, PA had heard an SW Broadcast of For the People with Chuck Harder out of Florida. One of Chuck’s listeners had purchased an AF/FM/SW radio from him and was complaining that while Chuck was touting ‘buy American’ he was selling a Chinese made radio. So these guys called Chuck up and said ‘we can build a radio for you and have you sell them on your show’. So the American Electrola DXC-100 was born. Design was started. A prototype was built and they flew to Florida to meet with Chuck. Chuck liked the radio. A new problem arose, CASH. The Pittsburgh guys didn’t have enough to get the radio into production. Chuck went on the air and asked his listeners to buy the radio, send in thier money, and the radio would be delivered, but they may have to wait up to 6 months. Chuck Harder’s listeners financed the 1st production run of 1000 radios. Actually, the 1st 1000 were sold in 1 day! Money came in, parts were ordered, radios were shipped. A few months later, they tried again. Another 1000 radios were presold in about 5 days. Again, parts were ordered, radios were built, and shipped. The serial number will tell you the production run. All serial numbers started with 52B, the next 2 leters are the production number OA = 1st run, OB = 2nd. The last 4 digits are the order of production.
Pretty cool huh, this radio sales for around 250 dollars these days and I got it for 6 bucks. I was immediately interested in Short Wave radio listening when I got the radio home and found a few stations, but after some reading I attached a very long wire to the antenna. I found where someone recommended tying a sock filled with sand to the one of the wire and throwing it on your neighbors roof for better reception. I tried that. It worked really well.
For a day there was a this long wire draped between my kitchen window and the neighbors house, no one saw it. I was able to get many, many stations in. I listened to cattle reports from Australia, English as second languish news broadcasts, religious nutjobs, and Cuban propoganda. Kind of neat.